


Horseshoe

by FortuneSurfer



Category: Per qualche dollaro in più | For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Genre: Bounty Hunters, Gen, Gun Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25788247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortuneSurfer/pseuds/FortuneSurfer
Summary: Challenge accepted! Written for my friend's prompt in the title.
Relationships: "Manco" | The Man with No Name/Douglas Mortimer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Horseshoe

Crinkled banknotes crunch and rustle softly in Manco’s left hand. He counts them with a few nimble movements of his fingers and puts them away into his rucksack. Mortimer is standing by the door, waiting for him, and can’t help smirking to himself at the sight of a visibly nervous sheriff wiping sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief.

The sheriff begins to bid farewell to Manco: “Pleasure doing business with ya, Mister…”

“You owe me another five hundred.”

Everybody in the room except for Manco – the sheriff, Mortimer, and the sheriff‘s secretary – freeze, puzzled. Mortimer immediately knows that something is off, but the sheriff doesn’t seem to be the kind of man who would try to short-charge them if there even is such a man in the whole Wild West.

The sheriff helplessly inspects the envelope in his hand and even jolts it a little for good measure.

“No… No, this must be everything. Everything the state offers was inside of it, I swear.”

Manco shakes his head. Mortimer’s hands are already placed on his Buntline Special.

Manco clears the situation with the theatricality that he’s occasionally prone to.

“Excuse me, sheriff. Knowing what kind of reputation the city has, I thought you to be the man who let it degrade like that. With all the rustlers, road agents, and general practitioners of the pistol profession on its streets, it was easy to assume that you must be badly afflicted with an itching palm that only money can soothe.” The sheriff takes in a deep breath with a confused and insulted grimace, obviously not being able to determine whether he’s accused or apologized to. But Manco already isn’t looking at him. “But now I see who really has too many friends on the other side of the law here.”

The redhead secretary crouching behind his broad desk isn’t snuffling papers anymore. He makes a sour face when Manco directly addresses him: “Patrick Camagham. With a beard or with none – I never forget a face.”

After a few seconds of silent tension, the redhead screeches and jerks when Mortimer’s bullet expertly strikes the gun out of his lifted hand. Manco half-turns to Mortimer and says: “You’ll leave my guardian angel without a job.”

Mortimer notes to himself with pleasure that his partner hasn’t even drawn his pistol, relying completely on him instead, and counters: “Not with our kind of life.”

In the meantime, the sheriff throws himself to the wanted criminal and ex-colleague and fells him to the ground, taking out (and almost dropping) a pair of handcuffs.

“But Tedd… I mean, Patrick? How… how could you, you… You dirty sonofabitch!”

His partner hates to be the witness of any arguments, and so Manco approaches the sheriff and stretches his hand out, reminding him:

“Five hundred dollars, sheriff.” On his way out, he also gives him a piece of good-neighborly advice: “Mr. Thornby. You should try looking for a new job.”

They can still hear the sheriff behind the door: “Am I really that bad at it? Why didn’t you tell me anything, you slicker!”

*

“Who was your first?” asks Mortimer at a rest stop.

Manco, who is cooking their dinner in a pot heating above a small fire, looks at him in hesitation.

“Bronco ‘The Widow Maker’ Herrig,” Mortimer watches Manco unconsciously draw a symbol from his memory on his cheek with his thumb. “He had a big scar on his right cheek in the shape of a horseshoe. Earned me eight hundred dollars.” Mortimer doesn’t interrupt him, having already learned to discern the intonations of his partner that mean that there’s something else coming. “But actually, there was another one, before him.”

“Why isn’t he the first then?”

“He was the reason I got into the job, but it was almost by chance.” Manco frowns and doesn’t go on to explain further, and Mortimer doesn’t insist on being initiated into his partner‘s past.

He drinks from a flask and gives it to Manco.

“Well, I’m grateful to him and Indio for our acquaintance.”

Manco drinks from it, too, and surprises Mortimer when he tells him, after having studied him for a little while:

“You could say that I’ve had two first partners, too. There was somebody else before you, a long time ago. But he wasn’t half as good as you. And our dinner is ready, old man.”

…And Mortimer is given some food for thought as well.


End file.
